The Fall
by OceanTiger13
Summary: Jim's feeling reckless, Hikaru's stuck inside doing chores, Monty needs a new nickname, and Len just wants to play spaceship. (Backstory for "Iowa Loam," my AU fic featuring the Star Trek characters as children growing up together in Riverside.)
1. Jim and Len and Hikaru

**The Fall**

Disclaimer: No money; perfectly content.

A/N: For those of you coming at this having read _Iowa Loam_ : this is a somewhat darker look at the kids' backstories, particularly Jim's and Len's. Be advised: the tone is a little less lighthearted. For those of you coming at this not having read _Iowa Loam_ , I hope you enjoy regardless.

* * *

 _Jim and Len and Hikaru_

"This is a stupid idea."

Len scowled when he was annoyed—which, Jim had noticed, was often. He also crossed his arms. He had a great scowl, like nobody Jim had ever met, but that didn't make it any easier to be on the receiving end, trying to convince Len of something he _really_ didn't want to be convinced of.

"Please?" Jim asked. He edged towards the nearest tree, a knotty, ancient sycamore with just enough footholds close to the ground to make it climbable.

Len didn't budge. "It just rained, Jim."

"So?"

" _So_ , you'll slip and fall and break your neck," Len said irritably. "And then I'll have to explain how and why to your mom when she gets back from off-planet."

"C'mon, Len, it's the same dumb tree, I've climbed it a hundred times."

"Yeah, when it's _dry_."

"Not always!"

"I don't see why we can't just play spaceship."

"We _always_ play spaceship."

"We don't. We play tag. We do leaf-diving at Hikaru's. Y'know," he added, significantly, "stuff you can do _on the ground_."

"One tree," Jim begged.

Len planted himself firmly in place. "I'm not going."

Jim was left with his arm stretched out at the tree, grinning and fluttering his eyelashes like a girl in one of those old-fashioned movies. Len didn't budge. After a few long, drawn-out seconds, Jim dropped his arm. "Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Chicken." He turned around and gripped one of the higher knots, hooking the tip of his sneaker onto a lower toehold. "One tree," he said again. "Just until Hikaru gets here."

"You're being reckless," he heard Len call after him as he hoisted himself up another branch.

Well, so what? He _felt_ reckless. Frank had called him as much that morning, when he'd tried sliding down the tiny staircase banister and knocked over a glass vase. Frank had been all right up 'till then. He was always ok for the first couple days after seeing Jim's mom. The problem was, she was only ever home for a week at a time before she had to return to her work off-planet. A few days would go by and then it'd be the insults again, and then eventually the back of Frank's hand, or—if Jim got him mad enough—his belt. When Frank had seen the shattered glass in the hall and Jim standing awkwardly at the foot of the stairs, he'd let out a long breath before smacking Jim upside the head and muttering at him to _clean up this mess_.

Jim reached the first branch and pulled himself up past the knot where his hand had just been. He looked back out behind him. He already had a much better view of the abandoned lot and the stretch of Derby Drive, muddy from the rain, that stretched out along the cornfields.

He maneuvered himself into the crotch of the tree. If he found the right spot, he'd probably be able to see Hikaru approaching through the leaves.

Below him, a groan: "Oh _fine_."

Jim glanced down to see Len walking toward the tree and grinned.

The next branch was trickier because it was slightly further up than the others had been. Reaching up, Jim could see that the bark was damp and the leaves were still covered in water droplets. Still, it was nothing he couldn't handle. He heard a grunt from below and looked down again to see Len hoisting himself up the trunk.

" _SPOTU_. Slowpoke of the Universe," Jim called over his shoulder.

Strictly speaking, that wasn't true. Len had climbed trees all over Georgia before he'd moved to Riverside. _It's so freaking empty here. Where the heck are all the good climbing trees?_ he'd asked Jim a week after they'd first met, and Jim had grinned and pointed him to the "woods" next to the abandoned lot.

Len didn't respond, which meant he'd taken it as a challenge. Jim grinned and gripped the higher branch with both hands, then kicked up his feet and wrapped his legs around it, hanging upside-down like a sloth, his floppy, blond hair hanging down off his forehead. He'd just barely started to maneuver himself up and over when he felt something shift against the fabric of his jeans.

Then his left leg _flipped_ down into empty space, and he felt his heart leap and his stomach turn over, and—

He opened his eyes, and found himself straddling the branch, his face pressed to the rough bark. His momentum had carried him around and up, and adrenaline must have done the rest. He let out a deep breath through his nose.

He stayed there for a moment, hugging the branch like a stuffed animal, before gently pushing himself back up to sit against the trunk.

There was still a lot of tree left to climb, but he could wait a minute for Len to catch up. Besides, the view was even better from up here. He could now see the tops of other houses, and, in the distance, the tall apartment buildings near the center of town. Still no Hikaru, but maybe he hadn't left home yet. Apparently he had chores. That was the one thing about having real parents, Jim reflected.

"If ya don't get moving you're gonna be the _SPOTU_ ," came Len's drawl from behind him. Jim looked over his shoulder. Len had taken a different route up. Jim could see his smirk through the gap where the trunk split into another two branches.

"I was waiting to give you a fair shot," Jim replied, turning and pulling himself upright.

"Is that so?" Len asked, shifting carefully and searching for the next branch. "Well, in that case—"

He broke off, the smirk gone from his face. His eyes met Jim's, and a split second's sickening realization passed between them. Jim didn't stop to think. He lunged across the crook of the branches, his hand outstretched.

" _Len!_ "

Too late.

* * *

"Hikaru Sulu, I do not appreciate your attitude right now," his mother had said angrily, tucking Yumiko's squirming feet into her tiny shoes. Right before she'd told him she expected the dishes to be clean, dry, and _put away_ —not just sitting in the drying rack—by the time they'd returned from the doctor's office, or else he'd be grounded into next Tuesday. Then she'd whisked Yumiko out the door, locking it behind her.

 _What would Len do? What would Jim do?_ Hikaru had asked himself. Realistically, probably skip out on their chores and head straight for the abandoned lot. Then again, neither of them had his mom for a parent.

In the end, he'd stayed. Kinuyo Sulu didn't make idle threats.

Hikaru had grumbled his way through the entire cycle, checking up regularly on the dishwasher which, sure, _said_ that it had only twenty minutes to go, but was clearly fudging it.

When the machine had finally finished, Hikaru sped through the drying process, only narrowly avoiding sending a stack of bowls tumbling to the kitchen floor before shoving them, still vaguely damp, into the cupboard and running to lace up his shoes. It was only two p.m.; with any luck he wouldn't have missed much. Maybe an alien invasion. Maybe, he thought with a grin, he could sweep in and save the day.

He ran all the way to the abandoned lot, leaping over shallow puddles on the wet pavement. The air had that cool, clean, _after-rain_ smell, and that made him run faster. He rounded the corner to the abandoned lot—their playground—where the antique cars and the old, claw-foot bathtub sat, rusty and undisturbed. No Jim, no Len.

Hikaru jogged to a stop, frowning. Hide and seek? No—he would have seen one of them.

He blinked and turned around in a circle. Had he _missed_ them? It was Saturday; there was no reason he should have. According to Jim, no self-respecting kid hung around the house when he could be out exploring, especially not on the weekend.

" _Len!_ "

Jim's shout came from across the junkyard and made Hikaru jump. His head snapped around to the tree line—just in time to see, high in the branches, Len slip and lose his balance.

Hikaru didn't see him fall. He was already sprinting to the trees.


	2. Before Riverside

_Before Riverside_

There was pain and then there was _pain_. Len knew there was a difference.

During the bad year, back in Georgia—long before he'd met Jim and Hikaru—he'd been wide awake one night. He vaguely remembered wanting something from the kitchen, cookies or crackers or hot chocolate. He'd crept out of bed and down the hall, but a noise from his father's room had stopped him. Apprehensive, he'd peered through the crack in the door to see his father doubled over on the floor, sucking in short, labored gasps of air, his face pale and stricken. Next to him his grandmother, her arm around his shoulders, her expression grim. Len's maternal grandmother, who, long after Len's mother had died, loved David McCoy like he was her own son.

A month later, when his father had sat down next to him on the porch, gaunt and wrapped in a blanket, to explain what was going to happen next, he'd been gentle but honest. "We're probably going to have to move to Grandma and Grandpa's house," he'd said, "It's hard for them to keep coming here to help—it'll be easier that way."

Len had known it was coming, but it still stung. The question had bubbled out of his mouth before he'd been able to stop it: "Are you going to die?"

David McCoy had barely reacted. He'd stared out at the darkening sky, the puffy clouds trapping the summer humidity. He hadn't spoken right away, and that was all the answer Len needed.

"You can't die," he'd shouted. "I don't wanna live with Grandma and Grandpa! I don't wanna move to stupid Iowa, there's _nothing there_ but corn and stupid Starfleet people, and—"

"I'm in a lot of pain, Len," his father had said quietly. He'd paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "But I don't want to die either."

Tears pricking his eyes, Len had leapt off the porch and run off down the hill. No one had stopped him. Eventually he'd come back, because he understood that there was the kind of pain he knew—touching hot metal or turning your ankle on a root—and then there was his father's pain. The kind you were totally unprepared for, that stopped you in your tracks and stole the air right out of your lungs.

Len was vaguely aware that he was lying on his side. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was afraid to open them. When he'd hit the ground he'd heard something _snap_.

He tried to take in a breath, and realized he couldn't—the fall had knocked the wind out of him. Running footsteps, coming from far away. He felt himself rolling onto his back, the dead autumn leaves wet and slimy against his bare neck.

Someone—Hikaru—was kneeling next to him saying, "Oh my god, oh my god," over and over again.

Then Jim's voice, urgent: "Len, are you ok? Can you talk?"

His eyes fluttered open. Jim's floppy blond mop and Hikaru's dark, close-cropped hair swam blurrily into view. He tried to shift and felt a spike of terror as he found what was broken. He realized that up until that point he'd only known pain, but never _pain_ , and that now, lying on his back in the leaf litter, he was about to get a taste of what it was like.

"M—my arm—" he gasped.

"Is it broken?" Hikaru asked, wide-eyed.

Len saw Hikaru reach across his body and a jolt of panic shot through his core. " _Don't touch it, don't touch it!_ " he yelped.

"I'm gonna go get help," he heard Jim say. "Ok? Len, I'm gonna go get your Grandma."

"She's not home," Len said, "Nobody's home—they're both out—" And then suddenly he _felt_ it, and his lashes were wet and stinging even though his eyes were closed.

"What about—"

Jim was addressing Hikaru now, who answered in a hushed whisper something Len couldn't hear. He caught the last bit, though: "Jim, what are we gonna do?"

"Stay here," Jim told Hikaru, and Len could hear a note of fear beneath his determination. "Stay with him, ok? I'm gonna get help." Now talking to him: "Ok, Len? I'm gonna go get help. Hikaru's gonna stay here."

He couldn't speak, so he nodded. It was about all he could do.


	3. Jim and Monty

_Jim and Monty_

Jim wasn't thinking about how he'd been stupid. About how he'd been reckless. About how Len—and Frank—had been right all along, except that right now he wasn't the one lying on the ground with his arm at a funny angle. He wasn't thinking about how that was messed up and _wrong_ and how his friends shouldn't have to pay for his mistakes. Jim wasn't thinking about any of that.

Jim was _running_.

Mud and dirt were flying up in his wake as he tore down Derby Drive, because Len's grandparents were out, and Hikaru's mom was out, and where the _hell_ were grown-ups when you actually needed them? Screw that—he needed a phone.

They were poor, he and his mother. He knew that. As a result, the old farmhouse didn't have call consoles, nothing wired to the network. But Frank had a personal cell, and Jim was going to find it—even if it'd get him smacked later, even if he had to rip it out of Frank's stupid, ugly fingers and run for it. The house came into view behind the tall fence next to the garage and Jim flew up the front steps, yanking open the screen door and shoving his way inside.

Then he stopped, because there was no yelling, no lumbering footsteps in the kitchen, no _keep it the down, ya little bastard!_

He nearly tripped on the broom and dustpan in the hall—right where he'd left them after cleaning up the broken glass earlier that morning. He ran into the kitchen, then through the living room, then up the stairs and back down again before realizing Frank was gone. Then he remembered Frank snapping at him after lunch on his way out the door. _I'm going to work; I'll be back late. There's pizza in the fridge. Don't do anything stupid_.

No Frank, no phone.

All at once, it hit him that he should have just run to Len's grandparents', or Hikaru should have just run back to _his_ house, and he'd been so _goddamn stupid_ to forget that Frank was leaving for the afternoon.

Jim shook the thought from his head, because back at the abandoned lot Len was lying on the ground, stunned and scared and hurt. He'd wasted precious time. He ran back out the front door.

If he hadn't looked to his right while flying back down the steps, Jim might never have seen him: another kid, a boy from the look of it, with buzzed red-brown hair, ten yards out and walking east down Derby Drive.

" _Hey!_ " Jim yelled.

The kid jumped and whipped around. Even at a distance Jim could see he was surprised and a little scared. He started backing away, and Jim started running toward him.

"Wait! I need your help! HEY!"

"Where the bloody hell did you come from?" the kid blurted out.

He had to be a Starfleet kid, because he had an accent and Jim had never seen him before at school. But there was no time to ask.

"My best friend just fell out of a tree and he's hurt," Jim said, "I need a phone."

The kid was staring at him like he'd grown an extra head.

"Please!" he yelled, anger mixing with fear and guilt. "He's hurt and I need your help!"

The kid blinked at him, and for a moment Jim thought maybe he wasn't all there, but then he spoke: "You need a grown-up. C'mon, mate!" He started running down Derby Drive, motioning for Jim to follow.

"Where are we going?" Jim shouted after him. Derby Drive was a long road. It stretched out for at least half an hour on foot, all the way past the Archer farm, before it dead-ended.

"My house!" the kid yelled back. "My parents aren't home but my brother is!"

* * *

Monty had determined that he needed a new name.

Nothing totally out of the blue, mind—he wasn't one of those kids who wanted something weird and flashy and ultimately stupid. But he was the new kid, or he was about to be, and "Montgomery Scott" had always been long and unwieldy, even for him.

That, and he was sick of the nicknames. _Monty_ was all right, sure, but nobody at home actually called him that. His mum's voice, cloyingly sweet over the video feed earlier that morning, had been the last straw: _Gummy, love, be good for your brother, all right? Your dad and I will be back with Katharine and the twins this time tomorrow_.

They were in Glasgow, finishing up packing for the move. Katharine was with them because she and Greg would've torn each other limb from limb the moment Mum and Dad were out of the house, and the twins were with them because they were too little for Greg to look after on his own. But Monty was old enough to know not to run with scissors or mess with the stove when no one was looking, and therefore not too much for Greg to handle by himself for a weekend.

Not that that made his mood any less foul.

Greg was eighteen and _blinkered_ , as their mum had explained to Monty, the day their dad had announced they were moving to some obscure town in the 'States called Riverside, Iowa. Greg and his dad had gotten into a shouting match about it, in which Greg had yelled something about how if Starfleet was gonna string him along to the other side of the planet, he should at least have a bloody commission instead of being Christopher Pike's glorified mechanic.

"It's a good job and a shot at something better for Katharine and Gum and the twins and _you_ , so I'll thank you to keep your moaning to yourself," their dad had retorted, effectively ending the discussion.

As usual, Monty thought, Greg was being an arse. Who actually got to _build starships_ for a living, whether or not they had a stupid commission?

Of course, Greg didn't see it that way. All he saw was a dusty, unpaved road in the middle of nowhere, with none of his friends and nothing familiar, and nobody he knew except his folks, who drove him up the bloody wall. He'd said as much as he'd shoved a cheese and tomato sandwich at Monty during lunch. Monty didn't like cheese and tomato. He'd said so and Greg had snapped at him, so he'd gone out for a walk on the aforementioned unpaved road, which was muddy from the recent rain.

As much as he hated to admit it, his brother was right about one thing: there wasn't really much to see on their new street. Just another tiny, run-down farmhouse—possibly vacant—and a bunch of corn. And despite himself, he was hungry. So he'd started heading back.

" _Hey!_ "

The shout came out of nowhere and made him jump. He spun around and saw another boy: dirty jeans, blond, floppy hair. Running at him full tilt.

Monty took an instinctive step backward, his heart starting to pound. In his earth sciences class back at home, he'd once come across a little paragraph on rabies and how animals that had it went completely mad, losing all sense of fear and gaining absurd strength because of all the adrenaline in their blood. He knew if people got it and weren't treated they eventually died, but he couldn't remember whether they went crazy too.

Why hadn't he brought a bloody comm? His mum had left him with hers for a reason—this just might be it.

But then the boy hollered at him again and made him hesitate:

"Wait, I need your help! _Hey!_ "

The boy skidded to a halt in front of him, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

"Where the bloody hell did you come from?" was all Monty could think to say.

The boy ignored him. "My best friend just fell out of a tree and he's hurt," he said. "I need a phone."

Monty blinked as he processed this information. _Tree. Hurt. Phone._

"Please!" the boy shouted, and Monty realized he wasn't angry, just scared and desperate. "He's hurt and I need your help!"

His stomach gave a sickening lurch. _Hurt_ could mean anything from _I-need-a-bandage_ to _I-need-an-ambulance_ , and he'd never actually known anyone who'd fallen out of a tree before, and bloody hell, he was just a kid without a comm—

 _Greg._

Of course. Stupid.

The boy was still staring at him, so Monty started back down the road, motioning for him to follow. Words were tumbling out of his mouth: "You need a grown-up." And: "C'mon, mate!"

They were running.

He'd never run so fast in his life, but the other boy was still faster. Whether that was because he was scared or because he was actually just that fast, Monty didn't know. All he knew was that when he rounded the corner to his house and sprinted into the kitchen through the side door, his eyes were watering and his lungs were burning like fire.

Greg was still at the kitchen counter where Monty had left him, and at the sound of the screen door banging shut he whipped around. "Gum—what the— _for God's sake_ you just tracked mud all over the bloody kitchen!" he shouted. "And who the hell's this?"

Between huge, gasping breaths, together Monty and the other boy managed to explain:

"He says—"

"My friend—"

"Out of a tree—"

"Think he—broke his arm—"

Greg's eyes went wide. He looked from Monty to the other boy, then back to Monty. Then he nodded and snatched up the keys to their dad's car.

"Show me."


	4. Twenty Questions and One Nickname

_Twenty Questions and One Nickname_

Hikaru was trying to think what his dad would do in his shoes, and he was coming up empty. He was a Starfleet scientist who studied bugs on far-off planets, and he was always prepared. He wouldn't have forgotten to bring a stupid _comm_ with him. Heck, he would've just been able to jump in his flitter and fly Len to the ER.

"Hikaru—"

Len's voice brought him back to the edge of the abandoned lot. He'd managed to get his breath back.

Hikaru was instantly focused. "Yeah?"

"I need a favor."

Hikaru nodded, then remembered Len's eyes were still screwed shut. "Yes—ok—what do you need?"

"Start asking me questions."

Hikaru blinked. "Questions? Like what?"

"I don't know! Any kind of questions!" Len snapped, sounding almost like his old, grumpy self again. In any other situation, Hikaru might have laughed. Instead he stuttered:

"Um—what—what's your favorite color?"

"For crying out _loud_ , it's _blue_ , you know that!"

"Sorry! Sorry! Ok. Um…what did you have for breakfast this morning?"

"What the _hell_ kind of question is that?"

Hikaru knew Len was in pain and that he needed to remain calm for his friend's benefit, but Len's panic and anger were all too easy to match. "I don't know, just answer it!" he shouted back.

Len grimaced. "I…um…" he paused. "Scrambled eggs. And toast."

Hikaru let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Ok. Good. What about…what did you get on your last test?"

Len frowned. "Last test was…a math quiz, and I got…I got an A."

Despite himself, a quick smile spread across Hikaru's face. "Smarty pants."

Len managed a short laugh, but then stopped and drew a sharp breath, and the smile was wiped off Hikaru's face.

" _Len! Hikaru!_ "

Hikaru looked up and saw Jim running at them across the abandoned lot, followed by another boy with buzzed hair, and a man climbing out of a beat-up ground car. He blinked. He hadn't even heard them pull up.

"Greg, call an ambulance!" the buzz-cut kid was shouting back at the man—who, Hikaru realized, wasn't a man at all, but a tall, burly teenager. He caught up to Jim and the buzz-cut kid in a few quick, long strides, and then suddenly everyone was grouped around him and Len.

"Len, we got help, ok?" Jim was saying.

"Call 'em! For Pete's sake!" the buzz-cut kid yelled, and Hikaru realized he wasn't from Riverside, and he _definitely_ wasn't from Iowa.

"I'm _callin'_ 'em!" the teenager shouted back. He whipped out a phone and dialed, then held it up to his ear. Then: "Hi. I'm at the corner of Derby Drive and—and—" he broke off, scanning for a street sign that didn't exist.

Hikaru and Jim shouted it at the same time: "Bay Road!"

"Bay Road," the teenager said, standing and taking a step toward the junkyard, his other hand pressed over his ear. "There's a kid who fell out of a tree, looks like he's broken his arm. Uh-huh. Yeah. We're on the other side of this—junkyard—antique cars? Yeah, there's two of 'em. Ok. Yeah. I'll wave when I see you."

The buzz-cut kid was staring so hard at Len's arm it was like his eyes were bugging out of their sockets. "How'll they fix it?" he asked. "Will they set it?"

Hikaru realized this was probably a good question for Len to focus on while they waited for an ambulance. Len's dad was— _had been_ , Hikaru reminded himself—a doctor, and between the three of them Len was the one who knew the most medical stuff. "Yeah, Len, how do they fix broken bones?"

At this, Len's eyes snapped open. "Regen," he whispered, then flinched. More clearly: "Regen unit. Bone knitter."

He was suddenly very pale.

"Len?" Jim asked. "Are you gonna hurl?"

Len shook his head slowly. "No."

Then his eyes rolled up in their sockets and his head lolled to the side, and he was down for the count.

* * *

Two paramedics were lifting the injured kid— _Len_ , Monty remembered—onto a stretcher. One of them was pressing a hypospray to his arm, above the break. A third was talking to Greg, while the other two kids, the fast boy who'd found him on the road, and the dark-haired boy who'd been waiting with Len, hovered next to him.

"Are you a blood relation?" the paramedic was asking, and Greg was shaking his head and stuttering: "No, I don't—I just moved here, I don't know—"

"He lives with his grandparents—" said the dark-haired kid.

"They aren't home—" said the fast kid.

The paramedic afforded them each a glance, then looked back at Greg. "And how old are you?"

"…Eighteen." The word sounded reluctant coming out of Greg's mouth, which, Monty reflected, wasn't normal. Usually his brother was all swagger about being an _adult_ , with adult rights, like traveling off-planet by himself and not having to be home for dinner.

The paramedic let out a short sigh through his nose. "Ok. Listen, I hate to put this on you, but seeing as how you're the only legal adult around, I gotta ask if you're willing to follow us to the hospital."

Greg looked for a minute like he wanted to say no, but finally, reluctantly, he nodded. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Thanks, kid," the paramedic replied. "We'll see you there."

Greg turned back around, looking at the other two boys. "Are your parents—" he began, but the fast kid cut him off.

"I'm coming with you." Without asking, he started walking toward Monty's dad's car, and the dark-haired kid followed.

"You coming?" The paramedic was hanging out the passenger door of the ambulance hovercraft.

Monty glanced toward the car. The fast kid and the dark-haired kid were already climbing into the backseat.

"I—yeah," he heard Greg say.

Monty followed Greg and climbed into the passenger's seat as the ambulance started up, lights flashing. No siren, though, he thought, disappointed.

Greg turned the key in the ignition, and the car rumbled to life. As they pulled out of the abandoned lot and followed the ambulance up Bay Road, all was quiet.

Then the fast kid spoke. "I'm Jim. Jim Kirk."

Greg started, but only enough for Monty to notice. "Gregory Scott," he said, after a moment.

Monty turned around and peered over the back of the passenger seat. Jim Kirk and the dark-haired kid stared back.

Greg's eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. "And you?" he asked, addressing the dark-haired kid.

"Hikaru Sulu," the boy said.

Jim glanced at Monty. "What about you?"

"Montgomery Scott," he replied. Then inspiration struck, and he grinned despite himself. "But you can call me Scotty."

"Nice to meet you, Scotty," Jim answered, and Hikaru nodded.

Then Jim stuck out his hand, which was a little weird, because he couldn't have been older than ten, but Monty shook it anyways.

If Greg noticed Monty's new name, he didn't say anything. Instead he spoke to Jim and Hikaru, adopting an authoritative tone. He sounded like their dad, Monty thought. Or at least he was trying to. "The second we get to the hospital _everyone_ is calling their parents," he said. "Understand?"

"Yeah," Hikaru said.

"Yeah. Ok," Jim echoed. Monty thought he sounded a little crestfallen.

The car fell silent again.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, and maybe it was because he _really_ liked the sound of his new name, but Monty couldn't contain himself. He looked up at Greg, whose knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

"I _like_ this town. It's exciting!"


	5. Jim and Len

_Jim and Len_

The first time they'd met, Jim remembered, Len had thrown up on him. Well, not _on_ him exactly, but close enough that Jim felt he had a right to joke about it.

" _Jim, stop—I have to finish this report," Mom said, because he'd been tugging on her sleeve trying to get her to give him the games login for the library PADD. She'd clearly been exaggerating when she'd said the ride back from Atlanta wouldn't take long at all, because it was taking_ forever _._

" _But Mom, it'll just take—"_

" _For God's sake, you spend too much time on that thing anyways," she snapped, and he pulled away. She glanced up, across the shuttle, and took a deep breath. "Jim, why don't you go on a mission for me, ok?"_

 _Jim made a face, because he wasn't stupid. He'd figured out that 'going on a mission' was code doing some kind of chore, like picking up rotten crabapples in the backyard or finding peanut butter in the grocery store._

" _I'm not_ five _, Mom, jeez."_

" _Well, you can either go on a mission or you can sit there and stew. Take your pick."_

 _Jim huffed a sigh. There was really no reasoning with her when she got like this. "Fine."_

 _She gestured across the shuttle. "Go introduce yourself to that boy over there."_

 _Jim looked. The kid in question was sitting with three adults: a man strapped into a wheelchair, and an old, gray-haired man and woman. The kid's hair was brown and looked like it had been cut recently. He looked a little taller and older than Jim, though not by much, and while the old couple spoke to each other in hushed whispers and the man in the wheelchair slept, the kid's eyes were fixed at a point on the floor. Maybe, Jim thought, he was bored too._

 _Jim glanced back up at his mom, who had turned her eyes back to her PADD, then slipped off his seat and walked over._

" _Hi," he said. "I'm Jim."_

 _The boy didn't look up. He didn't say anything, actually. He just kept staring at that point on the floor of the shuttle like if he looked away it would explode._

 _Jim followed his gaze and didn't see anything interesting. "I'm Jim," he repeated, a little louder._

 _At this, the old woman turned around and tapped the boy on the shoulder. "Leonard, you're being awfully rude."_

 _"You're Leonard?" Jim asked. He was getting impatient._

 _The boy still didn't answer. Then, after a moment, he mumbled something inaudible._

 _Jim frowned. "What?"_

 _"I think I'm gonna hurl," he said._

 _Then he did—all over the floor._

 _All at once, the old woman was out of her seat, pulling tissues out of her purse and chiding, "Oh, Leonard," over and over again, and the boy was unbuckling his seatbelt and rushing past to the bathroom. Jim followed because some of the puke had gotten on his sneakers. He found the boy gripping the edges of the metal bathroom sink. He glanced up and saw Jim in the mirror._

 _"Don't call me Leonard," he said, immediately._

 _"What?"_

 _"I said, don't call me Leonard." He had an accent, Jim realized. Something southern and drawly, which was weird because the old woman didn't sound that way at all._

 _"What should I call you, then? Kid-who-puked-on-my-shoes?"_

 _"My_ name's _Len."_

 _"Well hi, Len-who-puked-on-my-shoes. I'm Jim." Jim paused. "Are you sick?"_

 _For a moment Len said nothing and glared at him. But then the glare faded and he shook his head. "No. I just don't like shuttles."_

 _"How come?"_

 _Len didn't answer at first. Then he muttered something under his breath._

 _"What?"_

 _"I don't like flying. It freaks me out."_

 _"So you puke?"_

 _"Yeah." Len nodded. Then he bent over the sink, looking pale._

 _"Are you gonna puke again?" Jim asked._

 _"I don't know."_

 _Jim frowned. The equation wasn't quite adding up, the flying and the getting freaked out and the puking. But when he thought about it, he remembered that sometimes he got freaked out too, when it was just him and Frank and his mom was off-planet. Not because Frank sometimes yelled at him or smacked him around, but because when he tried to use Frank's phone to call his mom, she didn't always pick up, and he had to leave her video messages and pretend everything was ok. When that happened he went upstairs to his room, shut the door, and played spaceship. He wasn't stupid, reckless Jim Kirk from Riverside, Iowa. He was Jim Kirk, Starfleet officer, marooned on a distant, hostile world and needing to get back to his ship. The comms didn't work and his crew thought he was dead—that was why they weren't coming for him. Why he had to escape himself._

 _"Do you wanna play a game?" Jim asked._

 _"Do I look like I wanna play a game?" Len snapped. "I'm gonna be sick."_

 _"Ok, but what if we pretend we're not on a shuttle?"_

 _Len blinked at him in the mirror._

 _Jim thought for a moment. "We're not on a shuttle. We're on…a mining ship. A pirate mining ship. In the Delta Quadrant."_

 _Len stared at him._

 _Another spark of inspiration. Jim shut the door to the bathroom, grinning now. "And we're prisoners of war! The pirates are at war with Starfleet. We're Starfleet and we're prisoners, so we have to escape." He glanced back at Len, then added, "And you've been poisoned."_

 _He met Len's eyes in the mirror. There was a long pause, and for a moment Jim was afraid Len would say he was being stupid or tell him to go away. But then, slowly, he started to nod, and said, "So…I'm puking to get the poison out of my system."_

 _That sounded right, and Jim nodded. "Yeah. Hurry up, the pirates are coming."_

 _The shuttle lurched suddenly and Len bent his head low over the sink. A few seconds passed. Then he looked up, scowling. "Dangit, I'm doing the best I can here."_

Six months later, Len's dad had died, and there had been a memorial at Len's house.

His mom had left him in the living room to find Len's grandparents, to give them a casserole she'd made herself. Even when she was at home she hardly ever cooked, but there she'd been, standing in front of the stove, carefully measuring out ingredients and checking the oven. When Jim had asked her why, she'd said that grief made you hungry, and she wanted to do something nice for Len's family.

She'd left him standing alone, in itchy clothes and a tie that was choking him that she'd made him wear, surrounded by grown-ups in dark clothes speaking in southern accents. Len was nowhere in sight, so he'd wandered upstairs, tugging at his collar and his annoying sleeves. He'd never actually been in Len's room, but at the end of the hall there was a shut door with a pair of kid's shoes abandoned outside it. Nice shoes, leather and shiny.

 _He knocked and got no answer, so he knocked again._

 _Len's voice, muffled: "Go away."_

 _"It's me."_

 _Len didn't respond, but through the door Jim heard the sound of something shifting on the carpet, and then the sound of a lock turning. Gingerly, he turned the doorknob and pushed, meeting resistance. He was able to get the door open just enough to squeeze through, and sure enough, Len was sitting right on the other side of it, in an itchy button-up shirt of his own, his knees tucked to his chest. He wasn't crying right then, but there were tear tracks down his face._

 _Jim shut the door and locked it for good measure, then sat down next to him. He wasn't sure what else to say, so he said, "My mom brought you guys a casserole."_

 _Len drew his sleeve under his nose. "What's in it?"_

 _"Macaroni, chicken…" Jim tried to remember, then made a face. "I think there's broccoli. Sorry."_

 _"It's ok. I don't really wanna eat right now."_

 _Jim nodded._

 _Len buried his face in his knees, and let out a long breath. "I don't wanna be here," he said. "I wanna be somewhere else."_

 _"Like where?"_

 _"I don't know."_

 _"…Like on a starship?"_

 _Len didn't look up, but he shrugged._

 _Jim paused. "We're…on Delta Vega. It's a Class M planet. We were…doing research experiments, but something went wrong, and something got into the base. A monster. So…we're hiding so we can regroup, and figure out how to…"_

 _He trailed off, because Len's shoulders were shaking up and down, and he was making gulping sounds in the back of his throat._

 _Jim didn't speak. Hesitantly, he put his arm around Len's shoulders. Len didn't shove him away or tell him to back off, so they just sat there, Jim breathing and Len crying, and both of them saying nothing at all._

"Jim?"

Jim looked up. He was sitting on a bench in the waiting room, and Len's grandmother was looking at him, curiously.

"Are you all right there, dear?" she asked. Her voice was gentle and calm, and Jim something twist in his stomach.

 _Len didn't wanna go tree-climbing, but I wanted to, so we did, and then he fell and broke his arm._

"I'm ok," Jim said.

"Where are your friends?" Len's grandmother asked.

"They had to go home."

True to his word, Gregory Scott had made them call their parents the minute they'd gotten to the hospital. Hikaru's mom had shown up twenty minutes later in a towering rage. She'd yanked Hikaru out the door, snapping something about _safety_ and _that could have been you_ and _I need to know where you are at all times, even if I'm not there_ , and Jim was pretty sure he wouldn't be seeing Hikaru at the abandoned lot anytime soon.

He was also pretty sure that where Frank was concerned, their little jaunt to the hospital would neatly fall under the category of "don't do anything stupid." So when Gregory Scott had led him to the public comm console in the waiting room, Jim had taken advantage of the fact that he didn't know any better and dialed his mom's signal.

He didn't get an answer, of course, and Gregory Scott was reluctant to leave. But then Len's grandparents had shown up. Len's grandmother had immediately recognized him and offered to drive him home later, before disappearing into the hall to check on Len.

The Starfleet kid— _Montgomery-Scott-but-you-can-call-me-Scotty_ —had turned to Jim with a broad grin. "We should hang out," he'd said, adding as his brother pushed him out the door, "I hope your friend's ok!"

He was a little weird, Jim decided, but he'd gotten them to the hospital, and in the end that was what counted.

"He's all done now. Do you want to go see him?" Len's grandmother asked.

Jim nodded.

For some reason, he'd imagined Len would be asleep, so he was surprised to find him sitting up in the hospital bed, wide awake and looking at something on a PADD. Len looked up and gave him a knowing smirk.

"Well, _finally_."

After a beat, Jim managed a smile of his own, and sat in the chair next to the bed. "How's your arm?"

Len stretched it out, gingerly. He was wearing a dark, plastic brace that stretched from the palm of his hand up past his elbow.

"It's ok," he said. "I have to wear this for a couple weeks, but otherwise it's fine."

"Did it hurt? The bone knitter, I mean."

Len shook his head. "They waited for Gran and Gramps to get here so they could give me anesthesia. So I wasn't awake for it."

Jim remembered Len lying on the ground, his face pale, whispering the words _regen unit_. "I bet it would have hurt if you'd been awake, though," he said.

"Well, no," Len said dryly, "'cause then they would have just numbed it."

He was a lot less shaken-up than Jim had thought, and that more than anything was what drove the little stab of guilt into his stomach. His smile faded. "I'm really sorry," he said.

"Jim—"

"I shoulda listened to you. It was stupid and—and reckless, and—"

"Stop it."

Jim looked up. Len was _scowling_ at him.

"I followed you," he said. "It's not your fault."

"But I was the one who—"

Len cut him off again. " _Jim._ Stop freaking out."

Jim stared at him. There were some fights with Len you just didn't win. "…Ok," he said, finally.

After a beat, the smirk started to pull back onto Len's face. "Besides," he said, "you're not Chief Medical Officer of this starship, so you don't have the authority to freak out."

Jim was relieved to find he still had it in him to laugh. "Oh?" he asked, "And I guess you are?"

Len paused for a moment before answering. "Yeah. That's right."

"Well, some CMO you are, getting yourself injured like that."

Len snorted. "Where are we, then?"

"We're…" Jim had to think for a minute. "…on one of the moons of…Orion. We got stranded. You were scouting for enemies, and you were dumb enough to climb up a cliff without a rope, and you fell."

"And I guess you patched me up?" Len held up his arm.

"Yeah."

Len pulled a face. "Great."

" _Hey_ ," Jim said, but he was grinning.

At that moment the door swung open, revealing Len's grandmother, saying, "Leonard, time to get ready to go."

"Oh," Len said. "Ok."

Jim didn't have to look up to know Len was looking at him. He'd suddenly become very interested in his sneakers.

Then Len's voice, directed away from him: "Grandma, can Jim stay for dinner?"

Jim's head snapped up. He glanced between Len and the door, where Len's grandmother was smiling gently. "Sure," she replied. "Hurry up now; it's not getting any earlier."

She shut the door.

Jim turned to Len. "Thanks," he said.

Len shrugged. "I hope you like meatloaf."

He could've said they were having frozen peas and overcooked broccoli, but it wouldn't have mattered. Jim would've gone anyway.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading!


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